Resurrection Mall available now from Down & Out Books.
Look for the newest Nick Forte novel, Bad Samaritan, in January, also from Down & Out Books.

One Bite at a Time

Monday, November 17, 2014

Twenty Questions With Rob Kitchin

Got back from Bouchercon early this morning, in no condition to write something original. (You're welcome.) In my stead, Rob Kitchin has graciously consented to submit
to Twenty Questions for your amusement and edification. Rob lives in Ireland
where he works in a research institute and is a regular media commentator on
social and planning issues. He is also the author of dozens of short stories,
and four novels. Stumped,
which Patti Abbott calls "Intricate, terrifying, and thrillingly
propulsive,” is out now from 280 Steps in paperback and e-formats.

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about Stumped.

Rob Kitchin: It's a
screwball noir set in Ireland with a
first date, a severed finger, a vicious Dublin gangster, an ambitious
politician, a rockabilly cop, corrupt developers, a nosy journalist, and drag
queen farmers.

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and
what made it worth developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get
your ideas?” I was careful to ask where you got this idea.)

RK: I’ve no recollection at this stage, I’m afraid. I wrote the first draft of the book 15 years
ago. I set out to write a comic crime
caper set in Ireland that had two ordinary lead characters who got themselves
caught up in extraordinary circumstances involving several, competing
larger-than-life characters. Amongst my
favorite writers at the time were Colin Bateman, Joe Lansdale, Carl Hiaasen,
Laurence Shames, Lauren Henderson, Tim Dorsey and Janet Evanovich, and they influenced
the type of book I wanted to create.
Once I got the hook I needed to write the story to see how the puzzle
was resolved.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write Stumped, start to finish?

RK: The first draft didn’t take too long; a few months. Since then it’s been through multiple
revisions and edits, usually once every two or three years when I pulled it out
of a virtual drawer, dusted it down and gave it another run through.

OBAAT: What’s the back story on the main
character or characters?

RK: The two central characters are Mary and Grant. Mary lost her husband and her legs in a car
accident and is raising her two young children while studying at the local
university. Grant is a university
lecturer who has recently arrived in Ireland from England and is still feeling
a little out of place. The story starts
with them tentatively agreeing to go on a date, but then fate intervenes and
gives them the task of saving the life of Grant’s housemate, Sinead, who has
been kidnapped by Dublin gangster seeking the return of a valuable package.

OBAAT: In what time and place is Stumped set? How important is the
setting to the book as a whole?

RK: It’s set in the present day in Ireland, with a brief
sojourn to Manchester in England. The
setting was important to me. Fifteen
years ago the whole Irish crime fiction boom had not yet begun, with only a
handful of Irish writers having success in the genre, notably Colin Bateman
(whose books were set in Northern Ireland) and John Connolly (whose books were
set in the US). I wanted to read crime
fiction set in the Republic and I wanted to read stories that challenged
stereotypes about Irish society. A
screwball noir set in Irish suburbia, but which travelled round Dublin and the
Irish countryside allowed me to do that.
I knew that getting any novel published would be a difficult, but soon
discovered that my approach seemed to make it all but impossible. Every rejection letter I got started with the
phrase ‘I really enjoyed reading this, but ...’. The ‘but’ was crime fiction set in Ireland
has no established market, nationally or internationally. A few years later, when Irish crime fiction
was on an upward trend, I was told that the problem was there was no
established market for an Irish comic crime caper, or it was ‘too American’ in
style for Irish fiction. A couple of US
publishers did show interest in the book, but they felt the Irish setting was
too parochial and wanted the story moved to the US, something that I wasn’t
prepared to do.

OBAAT: How did Stumped come to be published?

RK: Kjetil Hestvedt at 280 Steps wrote to tell me about the
company and the books it was publishing and to see whether I would be
interested in reviewing any of them for the crime fiction blog I write (The
View from the Blue House). He mentioned
that he had enjoyed reading my last novel, Stiffed. We swapped a few emails and I ended up
sending him drafts of two novels, one I’d recently finished and Stumped.
He expressed an interest in publishing Stumped and I signed on the dotted line.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to
read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

RK: I’m an avid reader.
Beyond the academic work I read for my day job as a university
professor, I mostly read crime fiction and popular science and history. I generally read and review just over a
hundred books a year, circa 90% of which are crime fiction. Of those, I tend to focus on police
procedurals, hardboiled noirs, comic crime capers, espionage, and historical versions
of those (I have a fondness for stories set between 1930-60). I tend to shy away from cozies, psychological
and political thrillers, or tales with a supernatural bent. I always find it difficult to pick out
favorite authors, preferring favorite books, but have soft spots for Joe
Lansdale, Adrian McKinty, Gene Kerrigan, Philip Kerr, Carlo Lucarelli, Peter
Temple, Terry Pratchett, and Duane Swierczyski.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences?

RK: I read so widely that I’m sure I pick up ideas from many
different authors. The authors listed in
the first and previous question have no doubt been important influences.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of
you pants? Do you even wear pants when you write?

RK: I tend to outline about 20-30 pages in advance of the
scene I’m presently writing.

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do
you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is
in the revisions? Something in between?

RK: I tend to edit as I go.
I think writing is a recursive process that is made up of rounds of
drafting and editing. With non-fiction I
write in a very non-linear way and can be working on several chapters at once,
gradually building up the structure and narrative. That’s very difficult to do with fiction as
maintaining continuity becomes tricky.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a
single piece of advice, what would it be?

RK: It depends on what the ambition on the novice writer
is. If it is to be really successful,
write stuff that is similar, but slightly different, to what is popular in the
market right now. If it is to be true to
oneself then write the story as you feel it needs to be told and hope that the
market comes round to your way of thinking.

OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not
reading or writing.

RK: Walking the dogs.

OBAAT: Which do you take to bed at night,
the money earned or the good review?

RK: The good review. Stumped is my 18th authored book between
non-fiction and fiction genres and I’ve yet to make decent money from any of
them, except indirectly through rapid promotion as an academic.

OBAAT: Would you stop writing if someone
paid you enough money so you’d never have to work again, on the condition you
could also never write again?

RK: No. I make my
living from writing, either indirectly or directly, and I thoroughly enjoy
doing it. If I was to never write again
I think I’d be pretty miserable. Money without
pleasure sounds worthless.

OBAAT: If you were just starting out, which
would you prefer: 1. Form your own indie publishing house and put your work out
in paper and e-book yourself? 2. Go with a small or medium traditional house
that offers very little or no advance, a royalty that is only a fraction of what
you'd get on your own, and also makes no promise of any type of publicity push,
keeping in mind that you also will lose the publishing rights for a period,
sometimes indefinitely? 3. Go with a Big Six or legacy publisher that offers a
larger advance, legitimate review possibilities, entrance to industry literary
awards, and exposure on the shelves of brick and mortar stores. Pick one and
say why.

RK: Three. I think
most people starting have hopes of hitting the big time and having their work
read by as many people as possible and making a living from writing. Option 3 is the best for that. Over time, one changes perspective. I’ve done
all three between non-fiction and fiction and they all have their pluses and
minuses. The way you phrase Option 2 is
really very negative and in my view, small and traditional houses have a lot to
offer, including more attention on the author and the work as it’s not lost in
a vast system. In many ways, they also
have more vested in the book being a success.

OBAAT: Beer, mixed drinks, or hard liquor?

RK: Beer

OBAAT: Baseball or football?

RK: I’ve always enjoyed attending baseball games more than
football when visiting the US.

OBAAT: What question have you always wanted
an interviewer to ask, but they never do?

RK: To be honest, I don’t really feel the need to unburden
any nugget of knowledge or enlightening anecdote. I’m happy to just take
whatever questions come, and if a question slightly misses the point, I’ll
gladly steer it to be able to give some kind of reasonable answer.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

RK: I’m editing two non-fiction books, both about how
software is changing how cities are experienced and run. I’m hoping to get back
to drafting a novel in the new year.

Lots of ways to order Res Mall

Worst Enemies, Book 1 of the Penns River series

Click the cover to buy

Grind Joint, Book 2 of the Penns River series

Click the cover to buy

Forte 4: A Dangerous Lesson Available Now! Click the image below to purchase.

Chicago Private Investigator Nick Forte’s official task is to find out what he can about Jennifer Vandenbusch’s new suitor, who fails to measure up in the eyes of the family matriarch, Jennifer’s grandmother. This seems par for the course for Forte, as his personal life has been leading him through a series of men who treat women badly, though none nearly as badly as the Thursday Night Slasher. Forte lives on the fringes of the investigation run by his old friend Sonny Ng until elements of Forte’s case and life dovetail with the Slasher investigation, leading to Forte discovering more about the crimes—and himself—than he wanted to know.

The Man in the Window

"...we see him getting rougher, tougher and darker book by book. There are multiple twists in the end, two cool sidekicks, good action scenes and some pretty nifty Chanderlisms in this book, adding up to a perfect PI read"--Sons of Spade blog

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (Nick Forte 2)

It's a kind of authorial magic that The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of works as a tribute and as a story, and that neither aspect interferes in the least with the other… I can imagine this book finding its way into a class on writing crime fiction as an example of how to pay tribute to one's predecessors while at the same time writing a story that can stand on its own. It's an impressive accomplishment.--- Peter Rozovsky, Detectives Beyond Borders, December 18, 2014

About Me

Two of my Nick Forte Private investigator novels (A SMALL SACRIFICE and THE MAN IN THE WINDOW) received nominations for Shamus Awards. I also write a series of police procedurals set in the economically depressed town of Penns River PA, published by Down & Out Books. A non-fiction essay, “Chandler’s Heroes,” appeared in Spinetingler Magazine online in October of 2013.
I live in Laurel MD with The Beloved Spouse.